under the mums
by Qzil
Summary: Castiel ages. Meg doesn't.


_originally written for rashaka over on tumblr, but I found that I really liked it._

* * *

"I could possess you," Meg offers, rolling over and propping herself up on her elbow. "You'd never age or die. We'd stay together."

"I could make you human," he counters. "We know how the cure works now, and I am human. We could do it."

Meg takes in his salt-and-pepper hair, the crow's feet around his eyes and the wrinkles around his mouth. "Maybe when the whole Crowley thing is finally over," she says. "If I turn human while he's still out there, we may as well cut my head off and give it to him to save me the torture."

He frowns and she watches the lines around his mouth deepen. "I wish you would not talk like that."

Meg shrugs. "It's true."

They lie in silence for a while wrapped up in the motel room sheets, Castiel absently stroking her arm. "We'll find him eventually. He can't lie low forever, and what's the expression that Dean uses? I'm not getting any younger?"

Meg bats his hand away and flattens herself on the bed. She tries not to think about how the waitress at the diner had told them about how nice it was of her to take her father out to breakfast, tries not to think about the hourglass in her head when she looks at him. "That's why I offered to possess you," she says instead. "You'd stop aging. I'd find another meatsuit after, or we can wait for this one to catch up while it snoozes."

Castiel brushes his fingers over his faded anti-possession tattoo and stares at her. "We both know that's not really an option. Sam and Dean would send you back to Hell and to Crowley if we did."

"Turning me human isn't an option. It probably won't ever be," she says. "I don't want that."

Castiel catches her left hand in his and runs his finger over the gold band. "Meg, remind me what these mean."

"You know what they mean," she snaps. "Remember what else we said? 'Til death do us part?"

"I'd rather not part," he says quietly. "But I understand."

"Just go to sleep."

.

Meg takes his hand in both of hers and raises it to her mouth. "I killed Crowley today."

"I'm pleased for you."

"Of course you are." Tucking their joined hands under her chin, Meg scoots closer to the bed. "The white hair doesn't suit you, you know. You should've let me possess you. We could've done it together."

"We've been having this argument for the last fifty years, Meg. I think it's time we stop."

"Alright. More important things to talk about, anyway." Meg sighs and finally drops his hand. "Sam and I picked out a place in the Winchester plot for you. We're gonna burn your body anyway, just in case, but we figured we should stick a headstone there for you. We're putting you next to Dean."

"He'd like that. Have you picked out one for you?" he asks.

Meg shakes her head. "I'm not going to die, Clarence. Not ever."

His withered hand twitches in hers. "What will you do?"

"Find something else. There's always another cause out there. Hell, with Dean dead and Sam almost as old as you I might have a chance at busting the old man out. Or I could always go for Queen of Hell since I stabbed the bastard. Or do both. The underworld's my big, slimy oyster." She smirks. "You know, as Queen I could probably catch your soul before it went up to Heaven and keep you with me." He frowns. "I'm kidding. You don't belong there."

"We don't belong in each other's worlds, I guess," he says. Meg shrugs.

"We always knew that. But, Hell, we had a good run."

.

She puts flowers on his grave before she leaves for Hell, calls up the memories of books and lessons from her human life that she would never admit she remembered, not even to him, and choses them by meaning. Sam buries the urn that holds his ashes and Meg hands him the flowers she chose for him.

"What do these mean?" he asks. She shrugs and shifts her own bouquet in her arms.

"The memory's kinda fuzzy, but I think it means gratitude." He lays the pink carnations down and she throws her own bundle onto the grave, watches the flowers spread out over the mound of dirt.

"Yours?"

She stares at the striped carnations and red chrysanthemums she'd teleported states over to get. "I don't remember," she lies. "But they're appropriate, I think."

Sam tucks his hands into the pockets and rolls his shoulders. They stand quietly for a moment before Meg turns away from the grave and begins to trot out of the cemetery. "Hey, Meg?"

She looks back over her shoulder at him and plays with her wedding ring. "What?"

He smiles and the wrinkles in his face deepen. "Take care of yourself."

She smirks. "You, too, Boy King. Tell you what, I promise not to send any demons after you. I'll let ya die nice and natural."

"Thanks."

Meg nods one more time and walks out of the small cemetery.

.

She doesn't keep much.

Meg slips into the bunker before Sam can come back from the cemetery, teleports right into their shared room and lies on the sheets that still smell of him for a moment before she sets to work.

She finds the wedding photo he insisted they get and takes it from the frame to tuck into her jacket pocket next to his angel blade. She passes over all the other photos that show his slow aging and picks up the last one, a group photo Dean had insisted on shortly before he died.

She stares at wrinkled faces of her boys before she smashes the glass and puts the photo in her pocket. She ignores everything else from their shared life, passes over trinket gifts and more expensive gifts from decades of Christmases and made-up birthdays, and leaves them for Sam to pack away. Eventually she slips the wedding ring from her finger and wiggles it onto the leather of her necklace to rest with her other charms.

She takes one more look at their shared room before she turns to walk back into Hell, her hands still smelling of chrysanthemums and dirt.

* * *

_*according to the web site I used, striped carnations mean 'I wish I could be with you' and red mums mean 'love' although this may or may not be accurate. _


End file.
